Thursday Nights: Celebrating 40 years of Tindal Street Fiction Group

By Rob Ganley, Alan Beard and Mick Scully

Thursday Nights: Short Fiction

Celebrating 40 years of Tindal Street Fiction Group

Tindal Street Fiction Group celebrates 40 years in 2023. It's not just any writing group, though - it's truly extraordinary.

Made up of accomplished writers, its members down the years include Booker and Orange prize long-listees, bes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tindal Street Fiction Group
• Release date: Nov 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9780952824633

Book preview

Introduction

This book celebrates the 40th anniversary of Tindal Street Fiction Group. For the 20th and 30th anniversaries , current and former members were invited to contribute to anthologies ( Going the Distance , 2003; The Sea in Birmingham , 2013) and the books were kind of ‘Greatest Hits’ compilations. This time round we still wanted to produce an anthology of work to mark such an important milestone, but decided to do something different, something simpler and perhaps more satisfying: showcase the group as it stands now.

So, all current full members were invited to submit self-selected and self-edited pieces (either stories or novel extracts) for publication. The only criterion was a 5,000 word limit. All but one of the full members happily obliged and all but one of the submitted pieces were workshopped by the group. Thus, the texts here truly highlight the work of our members and give a snapshot of the group in action.

Alan Beard

Tindal Street Fiction Group Secretary

and member since 1985

Foreword

Forty years, once a fortnight, maybe 20 meetings a year, so that’s around 800 meetings and what did we talk about? Other people’s writing, of course. You get to look forward to hearing about the country and the city, the past and the dangerous present, love and longing, disappointment, spite, funny stuff: stories. You listen as intently as if you were a child tucked up in bed being read a bedtime story, thumb in your mouth. Weirdly, you’re an adult being read to, and it’s a precious space of concentration and surprise. Except you will already have read the text and scribbled notes in the margin of the printout – so it’s not entirely new, but there are always fresh notes introduced, things you missed first time, maybe new errors, but always new felicities. I really liked that bit.

And once or twice a year you might get the chance to present your own work – put your own precious story through the wringer. That’s an archaism, surely. And then it’s all about you, for one night only. How could I improve this piece? Is it back to the drawing board or straight into the recycling bin? How will I remember everything that everyone said? When I don’t even agree that that point was valid. I had something different in mind. Writers groups test and expose your intentions. No, that wasn’t what I meant.

You read it out loud – in the process realising some more of your errors, repetitions, awkward sentences – and then you must filter out the comments, process them, deciding which you must work on and which you can let go. Will you re-write it immediately or let it stew? Lots of comments, mostly consensual, but sometimes contradictory. It’s helpful to hear sensitive, knowledgeable critiquing about endings, about duff dialogue, dodgy syntax.

There’s something to be said for a collective knowledge in an experienced writing group – someone knows all about the Beatles, someone all about drugs, another about crime, someone about birds and classical music, someone else nineteenth century novels, the countryside in Hardy’s day, the probation service, the law, film, party politics, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, German so beware – everything you thought you could get away with by blagging – about a type of tree or a flower in bloom – did you get it right? Careful readers will spot the errors. A group of them allows you some confidence.

I must admit I’ve pitched some very miscellaneous pieces to the group – short stories, memoirs, chapters of a novel in endless progress – and every time I benefited. Because I was enabled to see how others might read what I’d written, when I could only see it from my own blindfolded point of view. I foolishly thought it made complete sense, my intentions for it must have been clear. But they weren’t always. I’m slapdash, where some people are meticulous. I go right up to the deadline and offer something provisional, not quite finished, so of course the process of feedback helps me finish the damned thing.

I was there at the beginning, I started it off, in fact, by gathering some other people together who were writing and wanted to improve. And I wasn’t their teacher. No one was the teacher, there was never a teacher. We were all at the same level, with the same aims, to write better and maybe get published. Peers. Rivals in a sense, but all with different approaches, different ideals. We weren’t really competing with each other in striving to attract the attention of editors. We were dogged triers and strugglers, we hoped we were contenders. And everyone got something published. Some went on to make a dent in the world of publishing: Julia Bell, Joel Lane, Kit de Waal, Annie Murray, Amanda Smyth, Luke Brown – a roll call of names passing through, changing over the years, sometimes every few months, but all remembered with pride and affection.

And successful authors don’t just go off and forget their roots. Some stay: Gaynor Arnold still reads and writes for us (as well as for herself), Alan Beard brings his honed stories to us, hones them some more and then gets them published, and Mick Scully still mines that criminal, dodgy seam in the geology of Birmingham’s underground.

There are fourteen strong stories in this anthology. I know because – again, sorry – I was there. I heard them all when they were read. I enjoyed reading them all – and you will too. No, actually, they’re all better than when I heard them because like all good writers, these story writers have made improvements, taken on board suggestions, had some time to polish their pieces till they shine in their different ways. You’ll find that they do.

Alan Mahar

Tindal Street Fiction Group founder in 1983

and former Publishing Director of Tindal Street Press

Thursday Nights: Short Stories

Ashok Patel

Ashok is a Lecturer in biomedical sciences and joined Tindal Street Fiction Group in September 2021. He has written a short play for stage which toured nationally (Jeevan Saathi; Life partner), two community plays (Multicultural and Ninety days), a BBCR4 afternoon play (Jeevan Saathi; Life partner), two short stories in anthologies (‘Ninety days’ in Dividing Lines and ‘Milly’ in Five stories) and three short films (Obsession, Chahana and Cathy and I). ‘Hotel Shalimar’ is based on an incident that happened to him when he was backpacking in India many years ago and is the first story that he read to the Tindal Street Fiction Group. He has found working with the talented and experienced writers in the group invaluable in his writing development.

Hotel Shalimar by Ashok Patel

Iwatch India pass by through the barred train windows. The heat is relentless and it grips this country like a figure-of-eight knot. Entire rivers vanish leaving behind parched land sighing for monsoon with patches of water around which washerwomen crowd.

Suddenly a globule of red sputum flies out of the carriage narrowly missing me. I stare at the man sitting opposite. He takes out a tobacco paan wrapped in a quarter page of the Hindustan Times with some thread and carefully unwraps it. He takes a bite and offers the rest to me. When I refuse, he wiggles his head in that Indian way and pops it deftly into his mouth. He crumples up the newspaper and nonchalantly throws it out of the window. A slurp is followed by a swallow and then he nudges the mixture to one side of his mouth, forming a lump the size of a small lime. He smiles at me disarmingly revealing reddened stumps of teeth. He wiggles his head again as if to say don’t worry it was never going to hit you. I’ve done this many times before.

‘What is your good name?’ he says.

‘Sanjay,’ I say.

‘Sanjay,’ he says, pronouncing it correctly. He lifts one leg onto his seat, dangles an arm on his raised knee and stares directly at me. His wife has her saree drawn over her head with an end pulled across to cover most of her face. Her eyes, clear white with irises stained a deep mahogany, dart in my direction but never make eye contact with me. She is listening intently though I doubt if she understands much English. The tips of her fingers have been dipped in henna, as have the soles of her feet. The rest of her hands and feet are exquisitely adorned with henna patterns and rings wrap the second toe of each foot as a symbol of her marital status.

‘From where are you coming? London, or Proper London?’ he says. I’ve had this question fired at me many times on this trip and I know that Indians refer to the UK as London and London as Proper London.

‘Proper London,’ I say.

‘Achchha,’ he says, but before he can continue, he is interrupted by a boy who is balancing a heavy plastic tub on his head.

‘FantaLimcaThumbsUp,’ the boy shouts catching my eye.

He lifts the tub off his head and rests it on his raised knee in one movement. It’s filled with ice punctured with brightly coloured bottles of soft drinks.

‘Thanda, thanda. Fanta, Limca, Thumbs Up?’ the boy singsongs.

‘My brother’s father-in-law’s sister’s family live in proper London! Wembalee, Wembalee,’ the paan-eater says. His wife turns her face to look directly at me and they both stare at me in expectation.

‘I don’t know them,’ I say as I give the boy ten rupees and take a bottle of Limca. He throws me a smile as I wave away the change. ‘I live on the other side of Proper London.’

They both look disappointed and his wife averts her gaze from me once again.

‘Are you marry-ed?’ he asks.

‘No.’

‘Why not? What is the matter with you NRIs? You must get marry-ed. There are many girls in India who will marry you because they want to go to Proper London.’ I smile at him and continue to look out of the window. Before long he loses interest in me and starts to talk loudly in Hindi to another passenger.

I take out a three-day old Guardian newspaper from my rucksack. The headlines are all about Blair and his first hundred days in power after ousting the Tories. I smile as I think of everyone working away in the lab at UCL, still probably on a high after we’d all helped to vote in the first Labour government in a generation. Most of them had thought it was a great idea when I told them I was off travelling but some wondered if it was the best decision for my research career.

As the train pulls into the station I strap on my backpack, grip my bum bag with one hand and my day bag with the other. There is an undulating noisy horde on the platform as desperate to get on the train as we are to get off. As the train groans to a standstill there is a brief lull in the noise as everyone tenses in readiness like two opposing armies before battle. I nod goodbye to the paan-eater and his wife. The mayhem starts even before the train has completely stopped. The train doors are flung open and a deluge of people shout, shove and claw their way into and out of the train. I push my way through them holding on to my bags. I find some space on the platform away from the frenzy and compose myself. Before long I am surrounded by four rickshaw wallahs.

‘Hotel? Hotel?’ says one of them.

‘Very best hotel?’ says another. I ignore them and walk away, letting them know that I’m no push-over. Eventually I follow one of them to his rickshaw, which stands in a line of rickshaws curled around the station like a basking snake.

‘Hotel Blue Lagoon, 5 star sir,’ the driver says as I climb into his rickshaw.

‘No,’ I say, having already decided on a cheaper option recommended in the Lonely Planet.

‘Take me to Hotel Shalimar.’

‘Good price Hotel Blue Lagoon, especial price for you.’

‘No, take me to Hotel Shalimar.’

He isn’t happy at missing out on the commission that top end hotels give to rickshaw wallahs for bringing in new customers.

‘How much?’ I ask. He waves his hand and says ‘as you like, as you like.’

I ask again but I am drowned out by his rickshaw coughing into life and speeding through the traffic with constantly beeping horn as I hang on tightly.

We arrive at Hotel Shalimar after a twenty-five minute journey including the customary detour.

‘How much?’ I say climbing out of the rickshaw unsteadily.

‘As you like,’ the driver says with a smile.

I offer him a 50 rupee note, which is generous for a 20 rupee ride. His smile is quickly replaced by a look of deep offence tinged with anger.

‘Don’t give me,’ he says ‘never! Give me 30 pounds.’

‘What! That’s more than 2000 rupees!’ I say, walking away from him.

‘OK, give me 10 pounds,’ he says. I wave the 50 rupee note at him.

‘Never,’ he says, turning his head away petulantly like Shah Rukh Khan in this year’s film blockbuster Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. A young Indian guy appears from the hotel, takes the 50 rupee note from my hand and slips it in the driver’s shirt pocket.

‘Challo, challo,’ he says ushering him into his rickshaw. The driver flashes a worth-a-try smile and wiggles his head, in that way, as he leaves. The guy tells me his name is Hemant and I follow him into the hotel.

There are two other young Indian boys working in the reception. I notice a small murti of Ganesh in a large alcove in the wall with a perfumed incense stick smouldering lazily next to it. I sign the register with my details and pay for one night. One of the boys takes me up a few flights of stairs to my room. He unlocks a padlock on the door and slides open the latch to reveal a room with a bed, a table and a ceiling fan. A corner of the room has a tiny doorless bathroom containing a traditional Indian toilet, which is a hole in the floor with raised footsteps on either side. A water tap protrudes knee high from the wall, with a plastic stool and a bucket underneath. No wonder then that these rooms are the price of two bottles of beer per night and popular with backpackers.

I strip off and wash sitting on the plastic stool in the bathroom, throwing water over myself from the bucket. When I finish, I stand dripping wet under the ceiling fan and within minutes I am dry. For the first time today I feel cool and calm like a lake on a windless day.

I hang up the mosquito net over the bed and put my passport, plane ticket, credit card and most of my money in a holster wallet which I lock inside my rucksack. I keep around 800 rupees in my bum bag and I chain and lock the rucksack to the steel bar of the bed. Finally, I spray the whole room with a mosquito and insect killer spray appropriately called HIT. When I get back tonight the room will be mosquito and bug free, and I will crawl under the net into bed. I make sure the door latch is securely padlocked and skip down the stairs. I wave at the boys in reception as I leave the hotel.

The streets are packed with shops and street vendors. There is the same dense humanity and incessant traffic that I have seen in other Indian cities. I find the Old Town and walk through the narrow streets lined with food stalls and bustling with evening trade. A shrug of teenage boys, wearing distinctive school uniforms and holding hands, meander by noisily. They shoo away a mud-stained cow with kumkum and rice splattered on her head that is obstinately in their way. I see an old man sitting on a makeshift wooden skate with uneven wheels on the other side of the road. Both his legs have been cut off above the knee. He stops in front of an air-conditioned shop selling imported western clothes and wails at passers-by pointing his stumpy legs at them. The owner of the shop hurriedly throws a coin into his copper pot and urges him to move on. When I first arrived in India, a sight like this would have moved me to tears.

I buy freshly cooked onion bhajias and eat them whilst I wander around the streets side-stepping the cow pats and ignoring the stares thrown at me. Staring is a very Indian pastime. As evening wears on I make my way to a cafe recommended to me by some backpackers that I’d met in Goa. I find a table and order a cold Kingfisher and before long I start chatting to a couple of Aussies.

‘I came here about eight months ago with my girlfriend. But a couple of months later we decided to go our separate ways,’ one of them says.

‘What happened?’ I say with raised eyebrows. He shrugs his shoulders.

‘India happened man. Bumped into Greg here a few weeks ago in Goa. How long you done?’

‘Three months. Three more to go,’ I say.

‘You feel like you’ve come home?’ Greg asks.

‘Not really,’ I say, ‘it’s tough going. The heat’s a killer and nothing works man. Travelling on trains and buses is a real pain.’

‘Yep, that’s India,’ Greg says.